The star joins the online meeting and right away begins an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding really apologetic. Despite being only a bit late, she needs to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, that’s just what is ideal to encounter. Moreover, it’s fairly unsurprising. Those who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken film titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and appeared in together with close companion the talented actress—will already know that she holds a lot to discuss, whether on gender, relationships, or the merits of forming a teen brawl society. And, after watching her recent multi-episode show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries further perspectives about the darker side of young adulthood (At 30, she is an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott is an admirer, naming it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which follows the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new representative Maia. Perhaps, the most significant influence on the moodboard was reserved for the popular sitcom, that show about a rising Hollywood star succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and chose to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The concept for I Love LA emerged—in part—from her own, initially fractious, move to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a phase that included her understand some big truths, professionally and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in New England, Sennott began writing and performing comedy while studying acting at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with Ayo and posting uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on having babies; a different one imagined working at the brand Hollister as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and ultimately appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about her previously will likely be regretting it currently. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” story, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted a clip called about Los Angeles online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos managing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). It would be tempting to make a show about internet celebrity that was horribly aspirational—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA avoids both, making for a depiction of affluent twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she comments. “I think that young people have been through a lot – I’m mostly thinking of people younger than me, like my little sister, who went to college during Covid, so she had to come home, or my other sister who was doing school online.”|“The younger generation has faced significant
